Alternates
by Fain Oakenbringer
Summary: Set after GoF. Harry and Ron are in the Burrow when a sudden tornado whisks them away to a different world, one where Voldemort never lost power. Back in the Burrow someone else is found in their place: Draco Malfoy. Except, believe it or not, he's good?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is set after GoF, before OotP. Voldemort is back and it's the summer holidays. I didn't want to set this after HBP, as HBP really just leads on to the real warring against Voldemort, and my story just doesn't have a place in the middle of all that action. So I put it here.**

**Hope you enjoy this story!**

**Chapter 1**

"Fred, you're so – can't you just stop being annoying for once, and _let me be_?" the redheaded boy glared at his older brother, who was looking very cheeky and very happy indeed. "I'm _trying_ to clean my broomstick?"

"Ah, but that's it, isn't it? _Trying_," and he winked at his twin.

"Well, I _would_ be able to clean it if you didn't keep badgering me!" Ron Weasley declared furiously. "Just sod off, will you?"

Fred shook his head and sighed theatrically. "Ron, Ron, Ron."

"Wait till Mum hears you," George grinned.

"Give you a right good spanking, she would," Fred nodded.

The tips of Ron's ears, which had already been red, turned even redder. Giving a rather strangled yell, he jumped up, and the twins, seeing their cue, ran laughing up the rickety stairs of the Burrow.

This left Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter in the living room. Hermione looked exasperated; Harry and Ginny were laughing.

"You know he really shouldn't let Fred and George get to him," Hermione frowned, setting her copy of _Advanced Transfiguration_ down on her lap.

"Yeah, but it really is funny!" Ginny laughed as the boys thundered around upstairs.

Harry smiled, too. He loved being in the Burrow. It was as much his home as Number 4, Privet Drive was just a place for him to stay in. And no matter what happened, no matter that Voldemort had just returned, and the entire wizarding world was in danger again, the Burrow was still as welcoming and homely as ever.

Ginny gasped suddenly. "Harry!"

"What is it?" Immediately Harry put down his own broomstick and came closer to Ginny, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor reading the _Daily Prophet_.

"Look at this…" she pointed to an article on the second page of the _Prophet_.

Harry took the paper up and read aloud, "_'Sirius Black Sighted'_." He quickly looked at Hermione, who put her hand to her mouth and hurried over to where Harry was sitting on the floor.

'_Late in the evening yesterday Sirius Black was sighted near Hogsmeade by one of the villagers, a Mr. Eugene Brockers, who had been taking a walk near the outskirts of the village._

' "_I was just minding my own business, mind, taking no heed of everyone around me, well, not that there were any, really, when someone just collided into me from the back," Mr. Brockers explained to Daily Prophet reporters. "If I didn't know better, actually, I'd think a dog or some kind of large animal collided with me. But anyway, this fellow almost bowled me over, and when I got to calling to him I saw he looked very familiar. Then he turned around, and right scared I was recognising his face – who wouldn't after his escape two years ago, and all those posters plastered all over the place? Anyway he pointed his wand right at me, he did, and Stunned me!"_

'_Mr. Brockers was found about an hour later by another villager, a Madam Rosmerta, who is the owner of local bar _The Three Broomsticks.

'_It has been two years now since the notorious escape of Sirius Black, who had been put into Azkaban –'_

Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Neither could quite speak. Sirius had been hiding out in a cave near Hogsmeade for the past year. It was too much coincidence that he had been sighted there, and Mr. Brocker's comment of having felt as if a _dog_ had collided with him almost certainly confirmed that Sirius, had, indeed, been sighted.

"Oh, Harry," Ginny said, "I'm sure – I mean, Sirius Stunning the man must mean he got away, doesn't it?"

"But why would he be running in the first place? Unless…" Hermione seemed reluctant to finish her sentence.

Harry did it for her. "Unless someone was chasing _him._"

Silence settled on the three. Finally Hermione spoke. "But if something was wrong, someone would've told us, wouldn't they?"

Harry didn't know. It could have been possible that Dumbledore hadn't known yet – after all, it wasn't as if Sirius had a tracker on him. But he should know by now, shouldn't he? Was this absence of news from anyone a good sign, or bad?

"Fred and George are so _annoying_!"

Ron stomped into the room, looking very bad-tempered indeed. "Look at this!" And he brandished five black fingers at them. "Experimenting around in their room, the whole place is full of traps…hey, what's wrong?"

In answer Harry thrust the _Daily Prophet_ at him. Ron caught it easily and began reading. At the end of it he was silent, as well. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "But – he must be – I mean –"

Suddenly there was a roar of sound, like a hurricane had just started inside the room. Hermione and Ginny found themselves being flung backwards and they had to scramble to catch hold of a chair or a table before hitting the other side of the wall.

Hermione could barely see; there was so much wind howling around her. Her eyes stung, and she squinted to try and make out what was happening. Her free hand was rummaging around in her pocket for her wand. Through the whiplash of wind around her she thought she could make out a swirling vortex, and what looked like two people struggling to hold on to the rug.

Then, just as she felt her hand close around her wand, something whipped out of the vortex and grabbed onto one of the two's legs, and in less than a second he had been wrenched from his place, disappearing into what seemed to Hermione like nothingness.

She brought her wand out, but now her mind was devastatingly blank.

_Spell, spell, give me a spell!_ she thought frantically.

But she had no idea what was going on, and she couldn't possibly think of a spell to counteract the impossibility happening just a few feet away from her.

Then her hand slipped, and she scrambled to get a better hold but – too late! The chair was out of reach. Hermione closed her eyes, bracing herself for impact – then she opened her eyes, and she was lying face-up on the floor of the Burrow. Getting up quickly, she retrieved her wand, which had fallen, and saw Ginny staring, open-mouthed. Hermione followed the younger girl's gaze.

Ron and Harry were gone. But in their place, looking disorientated and dazed, was a boy with blond hair, grey eyes and a pale, pointed face. Hermione did the only thing that came to her mind, the only logical thing she could think of. She pointed her wand straight at him and Stunned Draco Malfoy.

**A/N: So? What did you think? Pretty short chapter, but it's just the beginning. I think (and hope) the rest will be longer.**

**Reviews are very much appreciated! Constructive criticism even more so! So get reviewing, people :P**


	2. Chapter 2

_From chapter 1…_

…Hermione pointed her wand straight at him and Stunned Draco Malfoy.

**Chapter 2**

The jet of red light hit him squarely in the chest, and in moments he was down on the floor. Ginny gave Hermione a frightened look but didn't say anything, shocked as she still was. Hermione got up and slowly approached the prone boy, her wand out, hands shaking slightly. Ginny followed soon after.

"What happened?" Ginny finally asked.

Hermione turned slowly to look at her. "I don't know," she said quietly. Inside her mind was racing, putting forth and rejecting theories. She just hadn't read anything about tornados appearing out of nowhere and apparently sucking two teenage boys into nothingness before spitting out a blond-haired, arrogant boy in their place.

"Why'd it take – oh, Merlin, Hermione, where could it have taken Ron and Harry?" Ginny looked like she was on the verge of panic. "They could be anywhere!"

"Calm down," Hermione said firmly, although she was finding it hard to keep her cool, too. She looked from Draco to Ginny. "Do you think he knows anything about it?"

Ginny clutched her arm suddenly. "Hermione! What if…what if You-Know-Who's behind this?"

Hermione swallowed. "No…no…it can't be…I haven't read anything like this at all…it…it can't be him…"

"You don't know that," Ginny said. "Oh, wake Malfoy up, Hermione, then we can ask him."

"I can't do anymore magic," Hermione reminded her.

"I'll get Fred and George, then," and Ginny ran upstairs, leaving Hermione to keep an eye on Draco. Not that, she thought to herself, Malfoy could do anything at the moment. But you never knew…

What had just happened? Tornados didn't appear out of nowhere, as far as Hermione knew – and she knew quite a lot. It would have taken an extremely powerful wizard nearby to cause it, and even then, that didn't explain Harry and Ron's disappearance, nor Draco's presence in the Burrow. Tornados didn't just suck people up. They weren't _capable_ of that. Were they?

Soon she heard Fred, George and Ginny coming down the stairs. One of the twins was protesting that Ginny was very bad at pranks, because who on earth would believe that a tornado had just struck in the middle of the Burrow and swallowed up two teenage boys?

"I mean, if we were two trolls I'd very well understand, but really, Gin, it's an insult to our very –" and Fred stopped suddenly as he caught sight of the destruction in the Weasleys' home. "What the…"

George hurried over to Hermione. "Ok, we believe you, Gin. You know Mum's going to kill us, don't you? All this mess…"

"Harry and Ron just got sucked into a tornado, or whatever it was, and you're concerned about the state of the living room?" Ginny exclaimed.

The twins ignored her, choosing instead to pull out their wands and point them at the Slytherin lying before them. "All right, let's see what he has to say about all this. _Rennervate_," Fred said.

Immediately, Draco began to stir, groaning, eyes fluttering open slowly. They focused first on the twins, then Hermione and Ginny, and finally on the wands trained on him. Bewilderment followed by alarm filled his features.

"Ok, no sudden movements or you're going to be hit by the nastiest Bat Bogey Hex you've ever seen," George said seriously.

Fred jabbed his wand at the blond. "And no cheekiness, either. Now, tell us –"

"What have you done with Harry and Ron?" George finished for his twin.

"Harry and…Ron?" Draco repeated blankly. "Wait – where am I? What happened?"

"Don't you know?" Hermione asked, feeling disappointment creep up. She had felt sure that Draco would know what was going on.

Draco shook his head. "All I remember is some kind of tornado, and ending up here, and _you_," and at 'you' he cast Hermione a very accusing look, "Stunning me! Why the hell did you do that for?" At this his voice turned very haughty and he looked at Hermione with the air of someone who was of noble blood.

Hermione, of course, didn't appreciate this at all. "Well, excuse me if Harry and Ron suddenly disappeared and _you_ appeared instead!" she snapped.

"Yeah, shock is one thing, but is it too much to ask for you to, I don't know, not throw a spell at me?" Draco asked. "A cup of tea would be nice. You can serve it."

"Look, Malfoy, you may not think highly of Muggle-borns, but-" Ginny began.

Draco snorted. "Oh, so I'm Malfoy now, am I? Love, I told you, it was nothing personal."

Fred jabbed his wand at Draco again. "Can we get back to the business of Harry and – nothing personal?" This time he whipped the wand around to Ginny who, startled, gave a little scream. "_Nothing personal_?"

"What's that about?" George demanded.

Ginny drew a deep, shuddering breath. "I have _no idea_."

"Ok." Fred pointed his wand back at Draco. "_You_ explain it, Malfoy."

Draco lifted his hands up in a sign of surrender. "I'm terribly sorry, chaps, but this is between me and my love here."

"I am _not_ your _love_," Ginny shuddered.

"Can we just get back to Harry and Ron?" Hermione asked. "Knowing Malfoy, he's just trying to wind us up." She glared at him. "What happened to Harry and Ron? Is You-Know-Who behind this?"

Draco looked annoyed, now. "I told you, I don't know. Tornado comes, and suddenly I'm here. Wherever here is. And what makes you think I'd know if You-Know-Who was behind this?"

"Gee, I don't know, maybe because your father is a Death Eater?" Ginny asked sweetly.

Instead of looking angry, as Ginny expected him to, he was surprised. "Well, yeah, but he's been dead for twelve years. What's that got to do with me?"

The three Weasleys and Hermione just stared at him. "_What_?"

* * *

Harry and Ron found themselves in a darkened room. After the previous brightness of the Burrow, everything looked pitch black. By the time the two boys had picked themselves up from the floor, their eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness and they could begin to make out the details of the room.

As far as they could tell, they were in a spacious bedroom, richly decorated with tapestries, paintings and soft carpet. A four-poster bed stood against one of the walls with hangings that looked like they were made out of silk. Most of the furniture in the room looked antique and very expensive.

"What happened?" Ron croaked.

"I don't know," Harry said softly. "What _was_ that?"

"The…tornado thing? I have absolutely no idea."

"You know you're the one who grew up in the wizarding world," Harry said.

"Yeah, and before this, I'd have said it was impossible," Ron shook his head. "Where are we?"

Harry had no idea. Judging from the stone walls, a castle would have been his best bet. But why on earth would that _thing_ have put them here? Wherever _here_ was…

Motioning to Ron to follow him, Harry crept towards the door. Before he got to it, however, someone flung it open. Harry and Ron were bathed in yellow light from the torches in the corridor. Whoever it was that had opened the door stopped short at the sight of the two boys.

She was tall, fair-skinned with white-blond hair. Her robes, one could easily see, were expensive, made of what looked like satin. There were jewelled rings on her elegant fingers. Harry recognised her almost immediately.

"What are you doing here?" Narcissa Malfoy demanded, in the imperious manner befitting her aristocratic upbringing. "Why are you in the dark, and where's Draco?"

**A/N: What did you think? bounces up and down Reviews, reviews! Get going, people :P**


End file.
